Don't Pay UK

[RRidges]

That tweet is typical Trump garbage!
There is absolutely no evidence of noise from Turbines causing cancer! However there are a significant number of birds killed by the blades.
Coal is a seriously toxic energy source, both to produce and to use. And that's without considering the effect on the environment of the CO2 that burning it produces!
Unfortunately, vested interests here in US either lobby, bribe or simply lie about the effects in order to protect their industry. It would be much better if they found a way to migrate to zero-emission power production at the same sites as their polluting ones. Or at least nearby, so that the workforce isn't just abandoned, but that's not the way big business works here!
Back home in Aus, Coal is being replaced with renewables faster than expected, though it's still a major part of power production.

 

[SocketRocket]

just because i earn 25.1k and above a threshold, does not mean i can afford a 5k utility bill. i already pay my tax and i need to have utilities the same way as the rest of the population. for far too long, people think 100k earners in London are 'well off' and can afford everything. The reality is 100k Londoner is about the same as a 40k Northern after you factor in all the costs of living in london.

i pay high tax but we should have access to same kind of utilities. my leccy is the same wattage as yours, the gas burns at the same way. I am sorry to disagree but the situation we are in, needs to fix the source (high bills) rather than fix at the receiving end.

There has to be a cut off point when dealing with subsidies and benefits. Some people will be just over the threshold but that's the way the cookie crumbles and always will.
Those of us who are fortunate enough to bear the strain should do so while helping the less fortunate in our society, you never know where your fortune will take you and it may be you who would be grateful of some help in the future.

 

[Mudball]

There has to be a cut off point when dealing with subsidies and benefits. Some people will be just over the threshold but that's the way the cookie crumbles and always will.
Those of us who are fortunate enough to bear the strain should do so while helping the less fortunate in our society, you never know where your fortune will take you and it may be you who would be grateful of some help in the future.

I think you misunderstood what I said.. at the moment, all of us are ‘unfortunate’. This is like the financial crisis of 2008. At that point, we bailed out the banks. This helped all of us not just the bank accounts of those below a threshold. The energy security of the nation is in shambles. This has been due to decades of mismanagement. Now the bill has come, and we need those in power to wake up. This is their doing, and they better fix it.
Those paying over 40% without any personal allowance, child care still have to pay their bills and not everyone is swimming around with cash.
The fifth largest economy is looking at food banks and requires pensioners to use their bus pass to go around and find warmth.
We seem to be charging down the path of levelling down at the moment.

 

[SocketRocket]

I think you misunderstood what I said.. at the moment, all of us are ‘unfortunate’. This is like the financial crisis of 2008. At that point, we bailed out the banks. This helped all of us not just the bank accounts of those below a threshold. The energy security of the nation is in shambles. This has been due to decades of mismanagement. Now the bill has come, and we need those in power to wake up. This is their doing, and they better fix it.
Those paying over 40% without any personal allowance, child care still have to pay their bills and not everyone is swimming around with cash.
The fifth largest economy is looking at food banks and requires pensioners to use their bus pass to go around and find warmth.
We seem to be charging down the path of levelling down at the moment.

I don't disagree with what you've said here. The ideal situation is that the cap is set at around inflation above previous levels but I'm not sure if that could be achieved other than with massive borrowing from Government. I'm all for a further windfall tax on the likes of Centricita and BP but is it enough? Yes, the energy planning has been poor, yes, we should have been better prepared for this and need to seriously take stock of what we can realistically do over the medium to long term.

 

[Mudball]

Just when we are discussing renewable to meet the energy needsx one of the candidates on the Apprentice thinks ‘"I think one of the most depressing sights when you're driving through England is seeing fields that should be full of crops or livestock, full of solar panels’ … so she wants less solar ? Or maybe we will have a u-turn to the energy policy by morning ..

 

[RRidges]

Just when we are discussing renewable to meet the energy needsx one of the candidates on the Apprentice thinks ‘"I think one of the most depressing sights when you're driving through England is seeing fields that should be full of crops or livestock, full of solar panels’ … so she wants less solar ? Or maybe we will have a u-turn to the energy policy by morning ..

There IS an argument for optimising use of land, so using land less suitable for crops or livestock for power generation as opposed to simply the most convenient. Or even, perhaps, mixed use if do-able - e/g Wind.

 

[Mudball]

There IS an argument for optimising use of land, so using land less suitable for crops or livestock for power generation as opposed to simply the most convenient. Or even, perhaps, mixed use if do-able - e/g Wind.

I agree.. unlike the US, Aus, India or China, we have very limited land. We have to find a way to optimise it between green, agri and renewables. Hence my view that solar needs to get decentralised and moved into residential spaces. Micro generation is the way forward.

 

[PhilTheFragger]

Can we keep the comments non political please , even by reference
@Mudball please note ?

 

[Mudball]

Can we keep the comments non political please , even by reference
@Mudball please note ?

Apologies… but it is not aimed at a political party.. it is talking about govt policy, lack of investment and the last one about what one of the candidates is thinking on this matter. I agree it is a thin line…

 

[PhilTheFragger]

Apologies… but it is not aimed at a political party.. it is talking about govt policy, lack of investment and the last one about what one of the candidates is thinking on this matter. I agree it is a thin line…

Getting thinner,
By definition, criticism over government policy is political as one party has been in charge for some years now
And mentioning the forthcoming leadership election is so obviously political that I shouldn’t need to highlight it

 

[Crazyface]

We are with British gas and they have e mailed me with a delightful quote for their new fixed tariff. Jesus h Christ if bills hit that much I'm not going to be able to pay. How much? £3.5k. Per year. I kid you not. We were paying £70 a month.

 

[SaintHacker]

I saw this advice online yesterday. Sounds like a good plan if it is true

DO NOT refuse to pay your energy bill in October. Below is how you can make a stand and hurt your energy supplier without getting into debt/damaging your credit rating:

1. Cancel your DD & pay for what you use each month.

2. You then need to write a letter of complaint to your energy supplier. Once that complaint had been raised, your energy supplier can't take any debt collection work on your account, so they can't pass your details to the credit reference agencies etc. That bill gets put on hold whilst they try to resolve your complaint.

The energy company might offer you a small reduction - DON'T accept it. Keep the complaint open & hold strong.

3. Eventually, they will send you a letter of 'Deadlock'. A letter of Deadlock is a letter that is sent to you from your energy company saying they gone as far as they can with your complaint & can't go any further, so your only option now is to take it up with the energy Ombudsman.

For every complaint the Ombudsman receives, they charge your energy supplier £500 for every claim they have to investigate.

4. The energy companies also have limitations on how many complaints they're allowed open as well as a turnaround time of how fast they have to respond to a complaint & get a complaint closed. If they don't respond to them fast enough & don't resolve the complaints or they have too many complaints open, the energy firm will also get hit with a fine from the Ombudsman.

This is how your hurt an energy company. This will also put them in breach of their licensing conditions
& put their ability to trade at risk.

So if you want to fight these extortionate price hikes
1. Raise complaints
2. Do NOT close them
3. Take them to the Ombudsman

You can also submit a “subject access request” at the same time as the above. This means the energy company has a legal obligation to provide you with every piece of information they have on you; including telephone conversation transcripts, past bills, everything! This is time consuming for them to collect and is a huge hassle for them however they legally have only one month to comply.

Edit: the accompanying graphic contains a quote from Martin Lewis. This was taken from an article by Tyla. The written content of this post was taken from a commentator on the Tyla article. I thought others would find it useful so I made this post public.

 

[Neilds]

I saw this advice online yesterday. Sounds like a good plan if it is true

DO NOT refuse to pay your energy bill in October. Below is how you can make a stand and hurt your energy supplier without getting into debt/damaging your credit rating:

1. Cancel your DD & pay for what you use each month.

2. You then need to write a letter of complaint to your energy supplier. Once that complaint had been raised, your energy supplier can't take any debt collection work on your account, so they can't pass your details to the credit reference agencies etc. That bill gets put on hold whilst they try to resolve your complaint.

The energy company might offer you a small reduction - DON'T accept it. Keep the complaint open & hold strong.

3. Eventually, they will send you a letter of 'Deadlock'. A letter of Deadlock is a letter that is sent to you from your energy company saying they gone as far as they can with your complaint & can't go any further, so your only option now is to take it up with the energy Ombudsman.

For every complaint the Ombudsman receives, they charge your energy supplier £500 for every claim they have to investigate.

4. The energy companies also have limitations on how many complaints they're allowed open as well as a turnaround time of how fast they have to respond to a complaint & get a complaint closed. If they don't respond to them fast enough & don't resolve the complaints or they have too many complaints open, the energy firm will also get hit with a fine from the Ombudsman.

This is how your hurt an energy company. This will also put them in breach of their licensing conditions
& put their ability to trade at risk.

So if you want to fight these extortionate price hikes
1. Raise complaints
2. Do NOT close them
3. Take them to the Ombudsman

You can also submit a “subject access request” at the same time as the above. This means the energy company has a legal obligation to provide you with every piece of information they have on you; including telephone conversation transcripts, past bills, everything! This is time consuming for them to collect and is a huge hassle for them however they legally have only one month to comply.

Edit: the accompanying graphic contains a quote from Martin Lewis. This was taken from an article by Tyla. The written content of this post was taken from a commentator on the Tyla article. I thought others would find it useful so I made this post public.

Only snag I can see is that by paying for what you actually use, at the current prices this is still a massive amount and will also increase as winter comes in. How do you actually save money this way? One of the reasons of paying by DD is to balance out the payments throughout the year and avoid spikes come wintertime. The way this advice is written just adds a spike which will be unaffordable to many.

 

[Mudball]

Just listening to my new favourite guy - Mick Lynch - on political Joe.. I cant post a link but its on youtube called Down the pub with Mick Lynch... There is clarity of thought on how to fix some of the broken systems. Its not perfect, but atleast someone is providing a solution.

 

[SwingsitlikeHogan]

Just listening to my new favourite guy - Mick Lynch - on political Joe.. I cant post a link but its on youtube called Down the pub with Mick Lynch... There is clarity of thought on how to fix some of the broken systems. Its not perfect, but atleast someone is providing a solution.

I saw that pop up on my YouTube feed and will watch it at some point.

 

[SocketRocket]

I saw this advice online yesterday. Sounds like a good plan if it is true

DO NOT refuse to pay your energy bill in October. Below is how you can make a stand and hurt your energy supplier without getting into debt/damaging your credit rating:

1. Cancel your DD & pay for what you use each month.

2. You then need to write a letter of complaint to your energy supplier. Once that complaint had been raised, your energy supplier can't take any debt collection work on your account, so they can't pass your details to the credit reference agencies etc. That bill gets put on hold whilst they try to resolve your complaint.

The energy company might offer you a small reduction - DON'T accept it. Keep the complaint open & hold strong.

3. Eventually, they will send you a letter of 'Deadlock'. A letter of Deadlock is a letter that is sent to you from your energy company saying they gone as far as they can with your complaint & can't go any further, so your only option now is to take it up with the energy Ombudsman.

For every complaint the Ombudsman receives, they charge your energy supplier £500 for every claim they have to investigate.

4. The energy companies also have limitations on how many complaints they're allowed open as well as a turnaround time of how fast they have to respond to a complaint & get a complaint closed. If they don't respond to them fast enough & don't resolve the complaints or they have too many complaints open, the energy firm will also get hit with a fine from the Ombudsman.

This is how your hurt an energy company. This will also put them in breach of their licensing conditions
& put their ability to trade at risk.

So if you want to fight these extortionate price hikes
1. Raise complaints
2. Do NOT close them
3. Take them to the Ombudsman

You can also submit a “subject access request” at the same time as the above. This means the energy company has a legal obligation to provide you with every piece of information they have on you; including telephone conversation transcripts, past bills, everything! This is time consuming for them to collect and is a huge hassle for them however they legally have only one month to comply.

Edit: the accompanying graphic contains a quote from Martin Lewis. This was taken from an article by Tyla. The written content of this post was taken from a commentator on the Tyla article. I thought others would find it useful so I made this post public.

Last year I complained to the Ombudsman regarding a dispute I had with BG. To cut a long story short the Ombudsman found in my favour and BG refunded me four years of electricity payments plus a compensation payment to settle the issue.

 

[Mudball]

I would say yes.. but in a different way.. a 5k utility bill is immoral when oil has fallen. I know everyone has a future hedge but we are in crisis mode. If you are not on UC, a 5k will bring you into UC.

Instead.. bring the energy price cap back. Anything above for the next 12 months will be funded by all tax payers. This is like quasi nationalisation. When the markets stabilise, raise the cap 10% (or in line with inflation) to pay the debt. Have a windfall tax to fill the debt. I am a shareholder both directly and via pension, but I can take a dividend hit. The companies won’t struggle since they are being paid.

When the Big B event happened we were told that we will be able to do such things and control our bills. Yet while France, Spain and others have done it, we are still ‘holding emergency talks with energy company bosses’ ..

Listening to the EDF boss, I see he concurs with my logic… freeze the bill rather than targeted support to UC and pensioners. Literally 80% of the country won’t be able to afford 5K bills. Just sad that our leaders don’t think that way even when the companies are now saying it

 

[Old Skier]

Chatting with other guys around the bar, I am suprised at how many people aren’t/weren’t on fixed term contracts.

 

[Old Skier]

We are with British gas and they have e mailed me with a delightful quote for their new fixed tariff. Jesus h Christ if bills hit that much I'm not going to be able to pay. How much? £3.5k. Per year. I kid you not. We were paying £70 a month.

You might find that’s a good deal this time next year.

 

[SaintHacker]

Even the CEO of EDF has now come out and said something needs to be done. His suggestion is that bills are frozen at their current rate, and suppliers are then allowed to borrow from wherever to cover the shortfall, with a view to covering the costs of this over the next ten years when prices will hopefully fall. So we will pay for it, just over a longer time but with a flatter price curve. Seems like a sensible solution so long as we don't get hit with almighty interest on the loans. Maybe he's getting genuinely twitchy about people just not paying their bills?